Chapter One: Day Two at Sea: Tricked
He had felt uneasy about this voyage from the start. The idea certainly didn't have its origins in his own desires. No, not at all. He first learned of the scheme from Arwen. She mentioned to him the possibility of going to the Undying Lands while he, Sam and Pippin were recuperating in the Minas Tirith Houses of Healing. They never discussed it in front of Sam or Merry or Pippin. Certainly not. Sam would have vetoed the idea at once, and with great indignation. The Elf-Queen and Wizard were more subtle than that. The subject was broached at a private meeting Gandalf arranged between Arwen, Aragorn, and himself. That fateful meeting when she had graced him with the Evenstar.
Frodo's hand subconsciously rose to clutch at the elvish pendant secreted beneath his nightshirt. He never took the graceful pendant off, yet he also kept it conspicuously concealed. He told himself it was out of respect for Lord Elrond. But in the darkness of his shattered mind he acknowledged it was his own broken need to have something small and hard and metallic around his throat. Something nestled against his empty heart.
Gandalf, Arwen, and Aragorn had agreed amongst themselves that it was a proper and fit way of honoring the Ringbearer, but Frodo remained unconvinced. He really didn't want to leave the Shire. Leave his home and friends. Leave Middle Earth entirely. He desperately wanted to stay. He fully intended to stay. To pick up the shattered pieces of his past and start anew, freed at last from the ever-present specter of the Ring. But his desire seemed denied at every corner and from every direction.
Gandalf had finally gotten him to agree to go by pulling a sly trick on Frodo while on their trip back through Rivendell. The Wizard and Frodo were in Bilbo's quarters for a quiet smoke away from the others.
"You know, you're finally turning grey, Frodo," Bilbo chuckled as he handed the smoking brand to his nephew.
"About time too," Frodo chuckled, tasting the fragrant Longbottom Leaf in his mouth, but declining to inhale the smoke. Frodo's lungs were damaged by the ash and poisonous fumes surrounding Mount Doom, and smoking only exacerbated the problem. He still enjoyed the taste of pipeweed though, and puffed contentedly in the privacy of his uncle's chambers.
"Bilbo?" Gandalf leisurely puffed out a blue smoke ring and sent it to join its brothers in hovering above the elder hobbit's head. "Did you know that Elrond has commissioned a new grey ship from Cirdan?"
The ancient hobbit produced his own smoke ring and blew it directly at the Wizard, who idly changed it into the shape of a small pony and sent it galloping to prance over Frodo's head. "Has he now?" Bilbo replied. "Can't say as it really surprises me though. Elrond can't bear the thought of remaining in Middle Earth now that the Lady Arwen has chosen her path. I know he longs to see his wife again. I've been expecting him to leave ever since we heard the news of the wedding. Pity I couldn't join you all for that. I would have loved to seen Estel wed Undomiel. But my bones are in no shape for pony riding to far off places."
Bilbo produced another smoke ring and again aimed it towards the Wizard, who promptly turned it into a sheep and sent it skipping and making faint 'bahing' noises towards Frodo's head. Bilbo abruptly pointed his pipe at the Wizard. "You're going with Elrond, aren't you? You're finally leaving Middle Earth."
Gandalf slowly nodded. "Yes I am, old friend. My task here is finished. It is time to journey back to the Undying Lands and Valinor." Gandalf turned to Frodo and raised his eyebrows.
Frodo couldn't bring himself to say anything. He suddenly felt ashamed. Ashamed at leaving his dear Uncle behind to go with the Elves to the Undying Lands, when it was Bilbo who was really the one who saved Middle Earth. Bilbo's unselfish act of sparing Gollum so long ago deep under the Misty Mountains.
The Wizard turned back to Bilbo. "Elrond is having a special cabin built on the ship. A hobbit-sized cabin." He winked at his friend. "The Ringbearers have been granted special passage on his ship to Tol Eressea. You and Frodo are invited to make the journey with us."
"Mmmm... Me?" Bilbo stammered in his excitement. "Are you serious? Me? And Frodo? Going to Tol Eressea? Oh my goodness! Oh! What an honor!"
Frodo faintly shook his head at Gandalf, but decided against pressing the issue. Bilbo's wrinkled face beamed as he rose from his easy chair, hobbled over, shooed away the smoke menagerie from atop Frodo's head, and kissed his nephew's curls.
"Just think of it, Frodo, my lad," the ancient hobbit prattled as he limped over to the fireplace and put another log onto the blaze. "Think of the honor! Why… why … no mortal has ever set eyes on Tol Eressea, much less been invited to live with the Elves! Oh, Frodo, this is magnificent! Magnanimous in a way I can't begin to describe! Better than dragons and barrels and gold by far. Oh, I do hope I live long enough to go with you all. What an adventure this will be, eh?"
"Uncle Bilbo…" Frodo started, but was interrupted.
"We must go," Bilbo said, coming back to his chair and re-wrapping his legs with a blanket. "We simply must. We can't disappoint the Eldar, you know."
"Not a word to the others," Gandalf cautioned, pointing his long curved ceramic pipe at Bilbo. "Must not upset Sam."
"Oh," Bilbo replied, "quite right you are. Frodo-lad, we'll keep this one secret." Bilbo smiled and winked, then resumed smoking.
"Yes, Uncle." Frodo smiled, leaned over, and patted his elderly cousin's arthritic knee. Frodo looked askance at Gandalf, whose eyebrows arched to the ceiling in a 'what else could I have done?' look. Frodo again patted Bilbo on the knees. "When you are ready to board the ships, I will be there," Frodo replied, never thinking that Bilbo would actually live long enough to make good on Gandalf's plan. The Wizard had managed, once again, to get his way.
A couple of years later, there was another, more compelling reason for Frodo to take the great grey swan ship.
He was dying. Of that, he was certain. His once-robust health had carried him through the wounding at Weathertop, the cold hardships of the Misty Mountains, and the dreadful dark of Moria. The attacks along the great River Anduin and the razor-sharp maze of the Emyn Muil. Through the horrible specters of the Dead Marshes and the long, hungry march from the Black Gates to Ithilien. Up the Endless Stairs, through Shelob's poisons and the tortures of Cirith Ungol. Even through the parched plains of Gorgoroth and the final ordeal of the fiery Sammath Naur itself.
But Frodo had given his all for the Ring, and there was nothing left. No reserves of strength from which to draw. No place from which to find healing and rest. A dark, black hole where once a joyful song dwelt now filled his being, even as he retreated into the safe comfort of Bag End. He was spent – utterly spent – and not even the verdant Shire and the all-encompassing love of dearest Sam and ever-patient Rosie could replenish the bitter dryness of his hollow soul.
He was dying. He knew it back in Minas Tirith even as Aragorn and the healers frantically tended his wounds and burned lungs and feet, forced liquids and soft foods into his starved and desiccated body, and frequently drugged him into artificial slumber. He revived each day with the realization that he was recovering; yet paradoxically, he was still dying. And it would be painful and slow.
In Rivendell, Elrond privately confirmed to him that there was no medicine or procedure in Middle Earth that could permanently remove the poisons from his battered body and shattered mind. Poisons of spider and blade and months of carrying the evil about his neck. Evil that had seeped into the minute cracks in his mind and carved a cunning Ring-shaped scar there, as surely as his body carried a hard, white knife scar from the Morgul blade. And each passing day was as the turning of an acid-covered blade in the scars; the wasting away of a little piece of himself. Soon there would be nothing left except a brittle, cancerous husk infecting those around him.
'How ironic,' Frodo mused late one night in the privacy of his bedroom at Bag End. 'I am a small, reverse mirror of Sauron. I set out to rid the world of a great Evil, only to learn that I could no more destroy Evil than Sauron could destroy Good. I cannot purge myself of the Shadow no more than I can undo the scars I carry on my body. I will carry this burden until I at last succumb to it. Then, and only then, will Sauron's power be fully dispersed.'
Ironically, Arwen's unselfish offer of her place in the Undying Lands was his last chance for relief. Relief or else the ultimate release. Either way, he felt as if he didn't really deserve to go. After all, the Undying Lands were reserved for the Eldar. There was a permanent and irrevocable ban set in place by the Valar themselves against mortals stepping foot upon the blessed shores. Tol Eressea belonged to the first born; not to him. Not to someone who still carried the Evil of the Dark Lord within his very heart.
He did not belong on this silver and grey swan ship. Frodo laid his head upon the soft feather pillows of his upper bunk in the cabin he shared with Bilbo and tried to find sleep in the gentle rocking of the ship. Bilbo had fallen asleep many hours ago on the bunk below. Frodo turned over and tried again to still his restlessness.
He did not belong here. Frodo's broken heart knew it, and his troubled dreams confirmed it.